The following chapter has been contributed by the author, Bob Purdie, with the permission of the publishers, Blackstaff Press Ltd. The views expressed in this chapter do not necessarily reflect the views of the members of the CAIN Project. The CAIN Project would welcome other material which meets our guidelines for contributions.

This book is copyright Bob Purdie 1990 and is included on the CAIN site by permission of the author and the publisher. You may not edit, adapt,
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Bob Purdie's account of the origins of the civil rights movement
in Northern Ireland is warmly welcomed by those of us who knew
about his researches and were looking forward to seeing his
analysis of that crucial period. Bob may speak with an Edinburgh
accent, but we count him as one of us. He has been able to get
closer to the events and the personalities involved than many
earlier writers, who in some cases obscured the real truth of
the civil rights movement. The story needed to be told; Bob
was the right person to tell it, and he has done a fine job.

At the outset the movement was supported by every shade of political
colour, including some individual members of the, Unionist Party.
In the end the campaign was hijacked by the gunmen who created
a new and even greater need for basic civil rights in Northern
Ireland. Bob investigates the background an the various components
that made civil rights such an issue in Northern Ireland. Sensitive
to the misconduct of the Unionist government and incisive in
his interpretation of each incident, he analyses the movement's
failure to achieve adequate reform. The tragedy is that it was
almost our last hope for change by the ballot box. This depended
on parliamentary responses in the debating chamber at Stormont:
street politics should have been complementary to a parliamentary
interface.

But that was not to be, and Politics in the Streets explains
why. However late this story is, there are still lessons to be
learned. Bob has helped us to understand our problems better.

To Derry we went on October the fifth,
to march for our rights, but oh what a myth!
They beat us with batons, they beat us with fists,
they sprayed us all over with water.

from 'October the Fifth' (civil rights song)

NICRA was the best-known civil rights group but it was neither
the first nor the only organisation to agitate on civil rights
demands. It was, however, the most important group within the
civil rights movement and it initiated the events that led to
the creation of a mass movement. For a time it provided an umbrella
beneath which the other organisations came together. It began
life as a counterpart to the NCCL. but even in this it was not
original; in 1962 a Northern Ireland Council for Civil Liberties
(NICCL) was set up. In June 1962 the NCCL had adopted a resolution
from the Connolly Association calling for an inquiry into civil
liberties in Northern Ireland; the NICCL seems to have been set
up in response and as its first action, in July, it held a meeting
to prepare a memorandum on civil rights to present to Mr Justice
Bose of the International Commission of Jurists, who was visiting
Belfast.

Martin Ennals of the NCCL visited Northern Ireland in September
1962 to investigate the situation but he was rebuffed by the Nationalist
leader, Eddie McAteer, who told journalists that an inquiry at
this stage would be inadvisable. This was a considerable about-turn;
in March a delegation of Nationalist MPs and councillors had met
Home Secretary Rab Butler to present a dossier of complaints about
discrimination. But now McAteer said that 'no matter what truths
might be revealed by such an investigation they could only be
interpreted as weapons of war at this stage'. He was anxious,
he said, to create the best possible climate for the Orange -
Green talks. Following the visit, Sean Caughey, secretary of the
NICCL, issued a statement which said that his council had told
Ennals that an impartial inquiry by an independent body in Britain
could do much to redress the grievances of the minority. It said
that the Special Powers Act was preventing British standards of
justice from prevailing in Northern Ireland, and went on:

The mass disfranchisement of thousands of citizens in local government,
the disgraceful manipulation of constituency boundaries, the enforced
political tests for government jobs and legislation, such as the
Flags and Emblems Act, were some of the shackles on individual
freedom which would never be tolerated in England. Yet the British
Government was responsible under Clause 75 of the Government of
Ireland Act for everything that goes on in Northern Ireland.[1]

Caughey's statement paralleled the ideas about 'British standards
of justice' and the responsibility of the British government under
the Government of Ireland Act which were later put forward by
the CSJ and the CDU, but in Caughey's case they were able to coexist
with a strong commitment to republicanism. Shortly afterwards
the NICCL disappeared from public view and Caughey resurfaced
as secretary of the (republican) Political Prisoners Release Committee.
He was an example of the contradictory crosscurrents of nationalist
and republican politics in this period. Although in 1962 he had
appealed to the Government of Ireland Act, in 1963 he described
it as a 'constitution of bondage'. In July 1964 he was fined for
singing the Irish national anthem, 'A Soldier's Song' (in Irish)
at a republican rally in Ballycastle, County Antrim. In 1965 he
resigned from Sinn Féin, of which he had been a vice-president,
because of its refusal to recognise the legitimacy of both governments
in Ireland. In the early 1970s he was editor of the Provisional
republican newspaper in the north, Republican News.

Following the winding up of the Political Prisoners Release Committee,
Caughey became secretary of a small group called Irish Union,
which, in its personnel, provided a link between the NICCL and
the later Wolfe Tone Societies and NICRA. The chairman was Jack
Bennett, a former member of the CPNI; he came from a Protestant
background and had led a campaign in the late 1950s to get the
CPNI to return to the pro-republican line of the Irish Communists
in the 1930s. Another prominent member was Fred Heatley who, like
Bennett, was a member of the Belfast Wolfe Tone Society and later
of NICRA.

NICRA itself originated at a conference of the Wolfe Tone Societies
held in Maghera, County Derry, on the weekend of 13-14 August
1966. The societies had been created in 1964 out of the committees
which were set up to organise the 1963 commemorations of the bicentenary
of the birth of Wolfe Tone, the leader of the United Irishmen
and martyr of the 1798 Rising. Their 'primary objective was a
united, independent and democratic Irish Republic in accordance
with the principles of the 1916 Proclamation and the Democratic
Programme of the First Dáil'. Fred Heatley described them
as 'an autonomous adjunct of the Republican Movement', and Roy
Johnston called them 'a Fabian Society to the Republican Movement'.

The intellectual leaders of the Wolfe Tone Societies were two
Dublin academics, Roy Johnston and Anthony Coughlan. Johnston
had been a founder member of the Irish Workers' League (the Communist
Party in the Irish Republic), and both were involved with the
Connolly Association during periods spent in England. Johnston
was important as a systematic thinker who put together a package
of ideas on the links between Marxist and republican politics.
He had the distinction of being viewed with deep suspicion by
Seán Mac Stíofáin and William Craig, who
both saw him as being responsible for leading the republican movement
in a Communist direction. It is clear, however, from examining
some of his writings, that by the mid-1960s his nationalism was
far stronger than his Marxism. In an article published in 1966
Johnston identified the failure of Irish governments in the 1920s
and 1930s as one of not having acted to 'assume full control over
the reinvestment of the economic surplus'. The article advocated
a policy of economic autarchy, with the exclusion of foreign investment
and legislation to ensure that 'gombeen capital' was invested
in Ireland. The state 'could have developed along managed capitalist
lines, such as a small nation occasionally can do, for example,
as Norway'.[2] In 1968 he advocated a 'national revolutionary
programme' which would seek to unite 'workers in industries threatened
by "monopolistic rationalisation" ', small farmers,
emigrants and 'technically qualified intellectuals'. This programme
would have 'social objectives appropriate to the contemporary
situation, and quite distinct from the classical European path
of nation-building. This programme may be successful in helping
a small nation to emerge from the grip of imperialism even though
under considerable economic domination'.[3]

Johnston's Communism, therefore, had been transmuted into a nationalism
which emphasised economic independence, state planning and the
unity of a wide range of social groups in the tasks of nation-building.
When Johnston joined the Republican movement in 1965, at the invitation
of Cathal Goulding, IRA chief of staff, he was probably some distance
to the right of some existing members of the movement and he was
responsible not so much for leading the movement to the left as
for crystallising a more coherent political strategy. Through
the Wolfe Tone Societies, Johnston and Coughlan initiated projects
such as a Co-operative Development Trust which assisted in the
creation of co-operative enterprises along the lines of those
started by Father James McDyer of Glencolumbcille in County Donegal.
They also agitated against the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement
of 1965 and argued for a strategy of building republican support
through involvement in agitation on social and economic grievances,
as well as by a principled stand for a united and independent
Ireland.

The republicans were active in influencing the direction taken
by NICRA as well as in its creation. Goulding himself was present
at the Wolfe Tone Societies meeting in Maghera in 1966. To understand
the significance of their involvement, however, and the direction
in which republican influence took the civil rights movement,
it is necessary to examine carefully the political strategy of
the republicans in the mid-1960s. The abandonment of the 1956-62
IRA military campaign was highly ambiguous and from outward appearances
it was possible to interpret republican actions as either preparation
for a renewed onslaught or as a delicate operation to keep the
movement together while its direction was fundamentally changed.
It is clear, however, that important innovations were being made
in republican political activity. A document taken by the Garda
Síochána (the Irish police force) from a leading
republican, Sean Garland, in May 1966, and later published as
an appendix to the Scarman Report,[4] contained a good
deal of evidence of plans for intensive military training, but
it also outlined some of the new political initiatives being taken
by the movement. It began by stating the need for an organisational
form which could attract trade-unionists and for a 'radical Social
and Economic programme'. Committees should be created to deal
with such issues as housing and co-operatives, which would work
with other radical groups and with individual members of the Irish
Labour Party and trade-unionists.

There would have to be extensive education within the movement:
here the document indicated that social and economic agitation
would be given a much higher priority than purely military activity.

The present form of recruit training will be changed. This change
will replace the emphasis now placed on arms and battle tactics
to a secondary position and be replaced by an emphasis on Social
and Economic objectives . . . A recruit . . . finds that there
is a lot of unromantic and possibly boring work to be done before
he gets a chance to use his military training. This accounts for
the high turnover in membership . . . the recruit having seen emphasis
laid on military activity is not prepared for the political activity
which must come before it. [5]

The document proposed that the basic unit of the movement should
be the local cumann (branch), with factory-based cumainn
wherever possible. These should have specialised sections
that would agitate on different issues and among different sections
of the population. Elections were to be contested up to the level
of Dáil Éireann when the movement had built up sufficient
support. There was a quixotic suggestion that elected representatives
north and south should meet to set up an alternative national
parliament which would proceed to 'legislate' for the whole country.
This, it was suggested, could lead to a situation of 'dual power',
which might come to a head over the 'nationalisation' of some
foreign-owned factory which would be 'occupied' on behalf of the
Irish nation.

In June 1968 William Craig read out in Stormont lengthy extracts
from a document published in the secret IRA journal An tÓglach
(the volunteer). This contained several passages which gave credence
to the idea that the nature of the IRA and its aims were unchanged:

To re-unify our country. To force the withdrawal of the British
Army of Occupation. To abolish the existing Governments of our
country, North and South, and replace them with a true Democratic
Republican Government owing but one allegiance to the Irish people.

A commitment to armed force was stated unambiguously:

For mark this well: our enemies will never concede or surrender
their Power, Position or Privileges to anything but armed men
who are determined, committed and trained in every field of Revolution.

The main thrust of the document, however, was to point out the
lessons drawn by the leadership from the failure of the 1956-62
campaign:

1. The fact that the people saw no connection between the fight
in the North and the idea of improving the Irish social conditions,
etc.

2. A lack of resources . . . money and the right type of weapons.

3. The lack of an efficient publicity and propaganda machine.

4. A dwindling of public support both North and South making it
virtually impossible for men to operate on Guerrilla lines - one
of the basic ingredients for a successful guerrilla campaign is
the support of wide sections of the people. This comes only from
an awareness and understanding of the reasons and nature of the
struggle.

It was not enough to have modern weapons and 'the best of young
Irishmen' if the people did not understand the nature of the freedom
for which they were fighting and that

this freedom we talk about is worthy of their support because
it is for them we fight; it is for the establishment of a social
system that is going to provide them with the opportunity and
the means to develop all that is best in them and the Nation.

Propaganda by itself was insufficient; they must involve themselves
in social agitation and make it known that the Republicans were
involved:

For instance in one area recently there has been a series of protests
and demonstrations regarding poor and inadequate housing conditions,
the majority of the members of the committees which were responsible
for organising the protests are members of the IRA. They are known
publicly as such. Further, an Army section actually helped the
occupants of houses threatened with eviction to barricade their
homes, and actually stayed with the family for a week to help
them resist eviction if need arose. [6]

These documents demonstrate a commitment to developing broadly
based, open political agitation, but they contain little about
a civil rights strategy in the north; such a strategy could be
deduced from the analysis which they contain, but the documents
give no indication that it had been proposed in any detail.

The Wolfe Tone Societies, as the section of the republican movement
most directly involved in creating NICRA, had the most thoroughly
worked-out civil rights strategy. In August 1966 their bulletin
Tuairisc (information) published a long analysis of the
political situation facing Irish republicans. The civil rights
initiative was put in the context of a changed situation brought
about by the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement and the moves to
join the EEC. These were seen as products of a new strategy on
the part of Britain to ensure its continued domination of Ireland:

Britain now hopes to ensnare Lemass back into the United Kingdom.
The Free Trade Agreement will do the trick . . . a situation
in which the old-fashioned Unionist intransigence which served
Britain so well in the past will also be outdated and no longer
so convenient to imperialism.

The contacts between the Lemass and O'Neill governments were seen
as having been brought about by pressure from Britain, and as
a result 'O'Neill has got his orders to play down discrimination'.

A liberalisation of the north, particularly in its treatment of
Catholics, was a prerequisite for these new methods of domination,
which would involve the economic integration of north and south.
Concessions from the Unionists were necessary to enable Lemass
to sell the new arrangements to public opinion in the south. But
this strategy might not work out as the British government hoped;
the resultant 'unfreezing [could] release the political energies
of the people', and it could lead to a situation in which Protestant
workers were weaned away from Orangeism and united with their
Catholic fellow workers in the Labour movement:

How can Unionism possibly survive when Protestant and Catholic
are no longer at each other's throats, when discrimination has
been dealt a body-blow? ... This is the most progressive outcome
to the present situation ... the destruction of the machinery
of discrimination ... the unfreezing of bigotry ... the achievement
of the utmost degree of civil liberties possible, freedom of political
action, an end to the bitterness of social life and the divisions
among the people fostered by the Unionists ... They would permanently
weaken the basis of Unionism, and towards these objectives the
energies of the progressive people in the North should be bent
in the coming months.

This would not occur automatically. The Unionist government would
try to make the minimum concessions and strong pressure would
have to be put on it:

There can be no doubt that the policy of Republicans must be
to ensure that everything is done to make this demand more strong,
vigorously organised, widespread, well-expressed and heard not
only in the North but in Britain and throughout the world.
Force O'Neill to CONCEDE MORE THAN HE WANTS TO OR THAN HE THINKS
HE CAN DARE GIVE without risking overthrow by the more reactionary
elements among the Unionists. Demand more than may be demanded
by the compromising elements that exist among the Catholic leadership.
Seek to associate as wide a section of the community as possible
with these demands, in particular the well-intentioned people
in the Protestant population and the trade union movement.
Civil rights, electoral reform, an end to gerrymandering and to
discrimination in housing, jobs and appointments, the legal banning
of incitement to religious discrimination. These are the essential
demands of the present time.

The article went on to disavow the use of violent methods:

Above all, actions must be avoided which would serve to solidify
the disintegrating Unionist ranks - all irresponsible adventures,
anything which could be construed as provocation. There may well
be people who think, for example, that it may be a good thing
to throw a bomb at some orange hall, because Orangemen have thrown
bombs at Catholic halls. But this would undoubtedly be playing
into the hands of the enemy at the present time. Let us choose
our own battlegrounds and not be provoked. At the present time
the strength of the Catholic and nationalist forces in the North
lies in their political discipline and restraint. Let the Unionists
expose them- selves and rend one another asunder. Why should we
join in and help them to unite against us?

Another document, Ireland Today, published by the Republican
Education Department in 1969 when the civil rights movement was
already an established fact, gives further evidence on republican
strategy:

The achievement of democracy and civil rights will make the way
open for linking of the economic demands to the national question.
Those who see the former as an end in itself . . . insofar as
they comprise the present leadership of the NICRA . . . may be
expected to lose interest as rights are gained. They must then
be replaced by more consistent people.

It was necessary to work for the 'maximum co-ordination of efforts
between the principled radical elements' and to win support from
the NILP and the trade unions. It was also

essential that the civil rights movement include all elements
that are deprived, not just republicans, and that unity in action
within the civil rights movement be developed towards unity of
political objectives to be won, and that ultimately (but not necessarily
immediately) the political objective agreed by the organised radical
groups be seen within the framework of a movement towards the
achievement of a 32-county democratic republic.[7]

The republicans, in other words, were keen to push the civil rights
agitation further and to use it to build a radical coalition which
would set its sights, eventually, on a united Ireland. But it
should be noted that this document envisaged a definite stage
of development in which Northern Ireland would be significantly
changed as a result of success in achieving the reforms being
demanded by the civil rights movement. A further stage of more
radical agitation, including the objective of a united Ireland,
would follow. It is unclear how quickly this stage would follow
the preceding one, but clearly this more radical phase was predicated
on a successful achievement of the limited demands of the civil
rights movement.

Another Republican Education Department document, published in
1970, offers further clarification. A section, which the editor
notes was originally written in 1967, discusses 'Tactical Objectives'
in Northern Ireland:

The major obstacle to the development of radical national ideas
in the six counties is the lack of any form of communication between
the Movement and the people. There is an extreme need for a paper
which would inform the general public of the stand point of the
Movement . The existence of a ban on the legality of the Movement
makes the position even more difficult in that it is practically
impossible to even get a hall in some areas in which to hold a
meeting. Both these facts point to the high priority of the struggle
for civil liberties. In taking this up, however, it is necessary
to realise that non-Republican people in the North are not disposed
to agitate to get full civil rights for Republicans; they have
to be involved in their own interests. This means that the civil
rights movement in the North will have to involve Catholics on
the issue of the local government election register which is weighted
against them by property qualifications. [8]

In other words, the republicans saw the civil rights movement,
at least in part, as a means of achieving the legalisation of
republican political activity. Once this had been achieved they
could campaign more openly for a united Ireland on the basis of
uniting Catholic and Protestant workers, small farmers and the
lower rungs of the business community for an independent, democratic,
self-sufficient Irish Republic. Military action, although retained
as an option for the future, did not figure as part of this strategy.
Exactly when, where, how and if it would be resurrected was extremely
vague. It is clear, however, that it was not regarded as a useful
adjunct to the civil rights agitation. For all practical purposes
the republican leadership saw its movement as being in a phase
of activity which would concentrate on non-violent, as being in
a concentrate on non-violent, political agitation.

The initiative of setting up NICRA was very much that of Johnston,
Coughlan and the Dublin Wolfe Tone Society. The Belfast Wolfe
Tone Society 'had always maintained a sturdy independence, but
somehow lacked the interconnection necessary to become an effective
ideas forum. Contact with the Belfast Republican and Labour Movements
was tenuous, there was no link with Queen's at such a level as
to influence student ideas'.[9] Among the people most
prominent in Belfast were: Jack Bennett; Fred Heatley; Liam Burke,
a veteran Belfast republican and adjutant general of the IRA from
1942 to 1943; Alec Foster, a former headmaster of the Royal Belfast
Academical Institution and a rugby international; and Frank Gogarty,
a Belfast dentist who was a chairman of NICRA in later years.

One of the achievements of the Belfast Wolfe Tone Society was
the publication in 1967 of a pamphlet by Fred Heatley on Henry
Joy McCracken, a Protestant and a hero of the United Irishmen
and the 1798 rebellion in the north. This had prompted the Ulster
Museum to put on an exhibition about McCracken and BBC Northern
Ireland and Ulster Television to feature the bicentenary of his
birth. The following year the Belfast society promoted the commemoration
of another Irish patriot, James Connolly. A meeting in February
1968 brought together representatives of the Wolfe Tone Society,
the Communist Youth League, the CPNI, the QUB Republican Club,
the Republican Clubs, the NDP and Dúchas, Council of Irish
Tradition. A series of lectures was arranged, as well as a céilí
and film show. On 9 June there was a parade down the Falls Road
to the house in which Connolly had lived while he was in Belfast.
There a commemorative plaque was unveiled by Connolly's son, Roddy
Connolly. The event was marred, however, by the refusal of the
Young Socialists to march behind the Irish tricolour, which they
described as a 'bourgeois flag'. It had been included in the first
place on the insistence of the republicans, who refused to march
without it. The following weekend a similar parade in Derry was
called off when its route through the city centre was banned;
an alternative route through a Catholic area was not acceptable.
In June 1969 a proposed Connolly commemoration parade through
Belfast city centre was bitterly opposed by loyalists. John McKeague
of the Shankill Defence Association forecast that thousands of
loyalists would gather in Royal Avenue to prevent it marching.
The police restricted the parade to the Falls area and the organising
committee then called it off so as to avoid compromising the principle
of working- class unity. However, four members of the organising
committee tried to hold a silent protest march over the proscribed
route but were chased by loyalists.

The events surrounding the Connolly commemorations were an important
indicator of the difficulty of reconciling Ulster Protestants
to nationalist pageantry, no matter how much it was stressed that
the traditions being commemorated included the Protestants. Since
most of those involved in organising these commemorations were
also involved in NICRA, and both were initiated by the Wolfe Tone
Societies, the events illustrate how deep-rooted was their belief
that it was possible to bring about unity between workers in both
communities in Northern Ireland, provided the right political
formula could be found.

It was the Dublin Wolfe Tone Society which suggested a civil rights
campaign. Roy Johnston recalled: 'The August 1966 Maghera conference
of the Wolfe Tone Societies . . . discussed a memorandum on civil
rights prepared by the Dublin Society . . . with some of the Republican
leadership present, convincing the latter that this constituted
a valid way forward.' [10] The meeting was attended
by representatives of Wolfe Tone Societies in Dublin, Cork, Belfast,
Derry and County Tyrone. The first political business was to denounce
the Unionist Party, following a UVF attack in Malvern Street in
Belfast, which, they said, had shown the 'rapid moral disintegration
of Unionist ideology'. In something of an afterthought the Irish
News of 15 August 1966 recorded that 'a discussion took place
on the desirability of holding a convention on civil rights for
the purpose of drawing up a civil rights charter'. According to
Fred Heatley, a letter was read from the Dublin Wolfe Tone Society
which outlined the proposed civil rights strategy.[11]
It was a long document which took about forty minutes to read
and it was not greeted with warm enthusiasm. Michael Dolley and
Jack Bennett were severely critical; Fred Heatley and Billy McMillen
were doubtful about the emphasis given to the trade-union movement
- McMillen pointed out the vast difference between trade unions
in the north and in the south. Cathal Goulding was generally in
favour but agreed that some of the phraseology could be altered.
However, the broad strategy was accepted and the Belfast Wolfe
Tone Society began discussions on the proposal with other interested
people.[12]

After these discussions it was decided to drop the Wolfe Tone
Societies tag, and an ad hoc body was formed which organised a
seminar on 8 November 1966 in Belfast. The main speakers were
the president of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement, Kadar Asmal,
who was a South African-born lecturer in law at Trinity College
Dublin, and Ciarán Mac an Áilí, a Derry-born
Dublin solicitor who was a member of the International Federation
of Jurists and president of the Irish Pacifist Association. It
was agreed that another meeting should be called to launch a civil
rights body and this took place on 29 January 1967. Tony Smythe
and James Shepherd from the NCCL in London were present and there
were over one hundred delegates from a variety of organisations,
including all the Northern Ireland political parties. However,
Senator Nelson Elder of the Unionist Party walked out after an
argument over capital punishment for the murder of policemen.
A thirteen-person steering committee was elected to draw up a
draft constitution and a programme of activities. Its membership
was drawn from the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers Technical
and Administrative Staffs Section (AUEW TASS), the CSJ, the CPNI,
the Belfast Wolfe Tone Society, the Belfast trades council, the
Republican Clubs, the Ulster Liberal Party, the NDP, the RLP,
the Ardoyne Tenants' Association and the NILP. The committee subsequently
co-opted Robin Cole, who was one of the most liberal of the Young
Unionists and chairman of the QUB Conservative and Unionist Association.

In February the committee issued a statement deploring Ian Paisley's
campaign against the visit of the Church of England Bishop of
Ripon. It convened another meeting on 9 April to present the draft
constitution and this meeting officially brought NICRA into existence.
The new constitution, which was based on that of the NCCL, emphasised
the association's character as a body which would make representations
on the broad issues of civil liberties and would also take up
individual cases of discrimination and ill-treatment. The five
objectives of the association were:

1. To defend the basic freedoms of all citizens.

2. To protect the rights of the individual.

3. To highlight all possible abuses of power.

4. To demand guarantees for freedom of speech, assembly and association.

5. To inform the public of their lawful rights.[13]

These objectives said nothing about concrete grievances over discrimination
in housing, employment and the electoral franchise. They underline
the character of NICRA at this stage as an organisation which,
like the NCCL, was concerned with the defence of legal and constitutional
rights and the grievances of individuals, not with militant protest.

This phase was to last a year and a half and it was a period of
general ineffectuality. As Fred Heatley described it:

The first eighteen months was a time of frustration. William Craig,
to whom most of our complaints were directed, usually delayed
in replying. When he did he usually denied that the complaints
were justified - even when a civil rights officer (myself) was
physically thrown out of Hastings Street [RUC] Station! Yet we
did detect an easing off in harassment of Republicans and of itinerants.
But the most annoying aspect of the early period was the lack
of real interest shown by our first council members - at times
we couldn't muster up the required six members for a quorum at
the monthly meetings. [14]

The work of documenting abuses, which had been begun by the CSJ,
was continued and the association intervened on behalf of a group
of travelling people who were camped on Belfast's Shore Road.
But although in December a national opinion poll in Northern Ireland
found that 43 per cent of those interviewed thought that there
should be legislation to outlaw discrimination, NICRA seemed incapable
of tapping the support of this large, sympathetic minority.

In February 1968 the first annual general meeting of the association
saw some changes of officers and in the membership of the executive
committee, but no change of direction nor any indication of a
breakthrough. It was probably inevitable, therefore, that as one
committee member, Ann Hope, put it:

In the spring of 1968 there was much rethinking within the CRA
[Civil Rights Association] leadership; the tactics of Martin Luther
King in America had been absorbed inasmuch that it was felt by
some that only public marches could draw wide attention to what
we were trying to achieve by normal democratic means. But there
were members on the EC [executive committee] who didn't relish
either the trouble this would create or were too constitutional
in their thinking. [15]

To some extent NICRA had already become involved in public protest
action. In March 1967 Craig had announced a ban on the forthcoming
commemorations of the 1867 Fenian Rising and had proscribed the
Republican Clubs. NICRA denounced these measures as a violation
of the rights of freedom of speech, assembly and association and
was represented at protest rallies over the Republican Clubs ban
and the banning of the 1968 Easter Rising commemoration in Armagh.
NICRA'S official history records that the association 'was slowly
coming to realise that a ban on demonstrations was an effective
Government weapon against political protest and that although
letter writing to Stormont was a fine form of occupational therapy,
it was unlikely to bring any worthwhile results'. [16]

By the summer of 1968, therefore, the leadership of NICRA was
open to proposals for protest action. On 19 June, Austin Currie
raised the question in Stormont of the allocation of a house in
Caledon, outside Dungannon, to a nineteen-year-old unmarried Protestant
woman, the secretary of a solicitor who was a Unionist parliamentary
candidate. A Catholic family who had squatted in the house was
evicted to make room for her, and a number of other Catholic families
in the area were also denied houses. Currie himself squatted in
the house to draw attention to the case. Fred Heatley, on behalf
of NICRA, addressed a protest meeting in Dungannon on Saturday
22 June. In July, NICRA's executive committee was meeting in Kevin
Agnew's house in Maghera; Currie had phoned Fred Heatley and asked
to be allowed to put an idea to the committee, and he was invited
to address the meeting. He proposed a march from Coalisland to
Dungannon, ending with a rally in the town's Market Square. The
committee was at first divided over the proposal, with Betty Sinclair
opposing the whole idea of protest marches, and a decision was
deferred to a later meeting, which agreed to go ahead and fixed
the date for 24 August. An important factor was the support given
to the proposal from both the republicans and the CSJ, which as
a Dungannon-based group was particularly important.

A statement issued prior to the march claimed that there was support
from the Nationalist Party, the RLP, the NILP, the NDP, the CSJ,
the Irish National Foresters, the GAA, the AOH, the Derry Housing
Action Committee (DHAC) and the Wolf Tone Societies. The RUC initially
agreed to the proposed route and to the meeting in Market Square.
But Senator William Stewart, the Unionist chairman of Dungannon
Urban District Council, intervened and forecast that there would
be trouble if the march was allowed to proceed to the centre of
Dungannon. John Taylor, the Unionist MP for South Tyrone, also
made representations and the Ulster Protestant Volunteers, a body
led by Ian Paisley, announced a meeting for the same time and
place as the civil rights rally. The police responded by re-routing
the march to the Catholic sector of the town but NICRA refused
to accept this, since it would have implied that theirs was a
sectarian march.

Some two thousand people assembled in Coalisland and proceeded,
accompanied by nationalist bands, to Thomas Street in Dungannon.
There they were met by a cordon of police, standing in front of
a barrier of police tenders. A group of about 1,500 loyalists,
including Ian Paisley and Unionist members of Dungannon council,
were gathered behind the police tenders, with a gap of about fifty
yards separating the rival groups. A platform and public address
system were set up by NICRA stewards in front of the police cordon.
But before the meeting could commence a group of young demonstrators
attempted to break through the police lines to get at the counter-demonstrators,
who were jeering, shouting slogans and singing party songs. This
onslaught was driven back by a police baton charge in the course
of which four youths were slightly hurt. But appeals from the
platform succeeded in dissuading the civil rights supporters from
making any further attempt to breach the police cordon, and the
trouble was contained.

The meeting was chaired by Betty Sinclair, who reminded the supporters
that their objective was to demonstrate for civil rights, for
jobs and for houses: 'We are asking you to listen to the speakers,
and what we have done today will go down in history and in this
way we will be more effective in showing the world that we are
a peaceful people asking for our civil rights in an orderly manner.[17]

Austin Currie condemned the police action in blocking their route,
and said that NICRA would be organising more parades, which would
not stop at Thomas Street: 'O'Neill and those Orange bigots behind
him [will] realise once and for all that we are on our way forward.
We will keep going with disobedience and anything else that is
necessary to achieve our aims.'[18] He said that looking
out from the platform towards the town reminded him of the late
President Kennedy looking out over the Berlin Wall. The regimes
in Czechoslovakia and other Eastern European countries were no
different from the regime in Dungannon.

Gerry Fitt reiterated the point about Czechoslovakia (the Soviet
invasion had occurred a few days before). What had happened in
Dungannon, he suggested, was no different from what had happened
in Prague: 'We ordinary people have been walked over by a militant
force.' They were there to demand fair play in the allocation
of housing and jobs; he was not the enemy of the counter-demonstrators
and NICRA had people of all religions demanding the same social
justice. He promised to draw the attention of the government at
Westminster to what was happening in Dungannon. He ended by saying
that the lights would not go out until they had achieved civil
rights and a thirty-two county republic.

Jack Hassard, an NILP member of Dungannon Council, condemned the
ban on the Market Square meeting, which had only been notified
by the police at twelve o'clock the previous night. Pleas for
housing made at council meetings, he said, had fallen on deaf
ears. Many Protestants, like himself, were in favour of civil
rights. Joe McCann, secretary of the NDP, said that the meeting
bore witness to the failure of the Unionist Party to keep faith
with the British traditions it professed to admire. In return
for the money received by Northern Ireland from the British taxpayer,
the Unionists had turned the British flag into a party-political
symbol and had made a mockery of the British tradition of social
justice. Other speakers were Erskine Holmes of the NILP and T.
O'Connor of the Republican Clubs. After the meeting was over and
the main demonstration had dispersed, some civil rights supporters
succeeded in infiltrating to Market Square by a roundabout route.
There they staged a sit-down and were batoned by the police.

In a press statement issued afterwards, NICRA said that the events
in Dungannon had proved the need for a civil rights body in Northern
Ireland. It condemned the police for failing to control the counter-demonstration
and for not ensuring the right of the NICRA marchers to demonstrate
peacefully. It praised the stewards who had kept order on its
side. However, its supporters were not unanimous; a statement
issued by the Belfast Young Socialists condemned the police and
also accused NICRA of selling its principles by not leading the
demonstration into Dungannon.

The Cameron Report's judgement on the march was that

it is significant that this first civil rights march, unaccompanied
by any provocative display of weapons, banners or symbol was carried
out without any breach of the peace. It attracted considerable
public attention and was also regarded as proof in certain circles
that many elements in the society of Northern Ireland whose ultimate
political purposes differed in very marked degree could co-operate
in peaceful and lawful demonstration in favour of certain common
and limited objectives.[19]

As we have seen, there were in fact two minor clashes with the
police and the presence of bands playing nationalist tunes could
be interpreted as provocative. The organisers kept control of
some of their supporters only with great difficulty. Bernadette
Devlin recalled that in its early stages 'the whole thing had
a sort of good-natured holiday atmosphere', but when they realised
that the police had re-routed the march

the whole atmosphere changed. Most of the people ... hadn't really
thought about civil rights; they had come, with a sort of friendly
curiosity, to hear something. I do believe that then for the first
time it dawned on people that Northern Ireland was a series of
Catholic and Protestant ghettoes. The meeting got very angry,
though it was still a passive anger, with very little pushing
and shoving of the police. Some men were calling out that we should
force our way through, and the lines of the march were breaking
formation and crowding the police.[20]

The trouble was kept to a minimum as much because of the novelty
of the situation as anything else. No significant section of the
marchers had formed a determination to defy the police, and the
RUC, for its part, seems to have behaved in a generally good-natured
way. It was clear, however, that such restraint could not survive
a serious clash between civil rights demonstrators and the police
or counter-demonstrators.

Shortly after the Coalisland-Dungannon march, NICRA was approached
by the DHAC with a proposal for a march in Derry. The DHAC was
a coalition of radicals from the local Republican Clubs and the
left wing of the NILP; they had organised a series of imaginative
protests in Derry to draw attention to bad conditions and discrimination
in housing. Since NICRA had already targeted Derry for a march,
there was ready agreement and a delegation from NICRA travelled
to Derry to discuss arrangements with the DHAC. According to Eamonn
McCann, who was a prominent member of the DHAC:

It was immediately clear that the CRA knew nothing of Derry. We
had resolved to press for a route which would take the march into
the walled centre of the city and expected opposition from the
moderate members of the CRA. But there was none. No one in the
CRA delegation understood that it was unheard of for a non-Unionist
procession to enter that area.[21]

This seems highly unlikely. There had been violent clashes between
police and nationalist demonstrators in the mid- 1950s in Derry
city centre and only the previous June the Connolly commemoration
had been banned. A more credible explanation is that the NICRA
leadership was unwilling to accept that its marches should be
treated as sectarian and provocative. Adoption of this route,
however, did not necessarily mean that the association would defy
the police in order to march on it. NICRA probably meant to register
its protest but to stop short of an actual confrontation, as it
had done in Dungannon. This interpretation is supported by a letter
written by McCann, before the march, to Michael Farrell, leader
of the Young Socialists in Belfast, in which he gave an account
of the meeting between NICRA and the DHAC:

The police are more than likely to ban the march. [Betty] Sinclair
adopted a 'cross that bridge when we come to it' attitude, which
means that she wants the back door left open for a sell-out. I
think one would have to push for a 'we are marching and that's
that' position. The DHAC and the Republican Clubs will push for
that but I can't see anyone else.[22]

In the event, the more fateful decision was not the proposal of
a route within the walled city but making the starting point for
the march the railway station on the Protestant Waterside. This
meant that the entire route was prohibited and there was little
scope, as in Dungannon, to march peacefully to a token, non-violent
confrontation with the police. The ban was imposed by Minister
of Home Affairs William Craig after the Apprentice Boys of Derry
had announced a procession at the same time and over the same
route as the civil rights march. They claimed that this was an
annual event and it does seem that the date coincided with a regular
initiation ceremony for new members of their organisation. But
the ceremony was usually held in the morning and would not, therefore,
have clashed with the NICRA demonstration. Fergus Pyle of the
Irish Times was at the station when the expected delegation
from Liverpool arrived on the morning train. He was told that
they were unaware of any plan to switch the ceremony to the afternoon
and that arrangments were the same as in previous years.[23]

After Craig had announced on Thursday 3 October that the Apprentice
Boys march was to be banned and that the civil rights march would
not be permitted to take place within the walled city or in the
Waterside ward, an emergency meeting of the NICRA executive committee
was called. The committee was divided over whether or not to proceed
with the march but it agreed to send a delegation to Derry to
consult the local people; this meeting began on the evening of
Friday 4 October and went on until 1 a.m. on Saturday. Conn McCluskey
of the CSJ held out strongly against defying the ban but the DHAC
representatives made it clear that they would go ahead in any
case, and this seems to have swayed the NICRA members. Eddie McAteer
made a public call for the march to be postponed, but Fred Heatley,
John McAnerney and Betty Sinclair visited him at home to persuade
him not to pull out. He told them that he did not like the company
they were keeping - presumably the DHAC - but he did participate.

The parade formed up outside Waterside railway station, on the
opposite bank of the River Foyle to the city centre. There was
police intervention almost immediately; an NILP loudspeaker van,
which was making announcements, was stopped and its three occupants
were taken to Victoria RUC station where, one of them later told
the Belfast Telegraph, they were charged with incitement
to defy the ban on the march. At the head of the parade was a
blue banner bearing the words 'Civil Rights March', which had
been carried on the Coalisland-Dungannon march. In the front rank
were Ivan Cooper, Eddie McAteer and Gerry Fitt. Behind them were
Austin Currie, Proinsias Mac Aonghusa and David Green of Citizens
for PR in the Irish Republic, [24] and three Westminster
Labour MPs, Russell Kerr, Ann Kerr and John Ryan, who had travelled
directly from the Labour Party conference with Gerry Fitt. Placards
proclaimed such slogans as 'Police State Here', 'The Proper Place
for Politics is in the Streets', 'Class not Creed', and 'A Dhia
Saor Éire' (God free Ireland). The turnout was much smaller
than for the Coalisland-Dungannon march, at about four hundred.
County Inspector William Meharg of the RUC warned the crowd that
no march was permitted in 'this part of the Maiden City'. He advised
them, for their own safety and that of the women and children
present, to leave the area. He later reiterated the warning and
told them that the police would have to see that the prohibition
order was enforced. Ivan Cooper asked the crowd to behave responsibly
and stressed that NICRA did not want any violence or bloodshed.

The original route would have taken the march up the steep slopes
of Simpson's Brae and Distillery Brae to Spencer Road and then
to the upper tier of Craigavon Bridge. The police had blocked
this way and the marchers set off along Duke Street, trying to
find another way onto the bridge. The police hastily threw a cordon
across the end of Duke Street and here the first clashes occurred.
Fred Heatley believes that he was the first marcher to be arrested.
He had arrived late with other NICRA leaders from Belfast, and
seeing the march moving off, he ran to its head. On reaching the
front, he claims, he was kneed in the groin by a policeman, dragged
behind police lines and ordered into a Black Maria. Fergus Pyle
saw a Young Socialist being hit on the head by a baton and a 'girl
in a mini skirt carrying the Plough and Stars [flag] wrestling
with a constable, and a few men grabbing and fighting with policemen'.
It was at this point that Gerry Fitt, Eddie McAteer and Austin
Currie were injured. Paddy Kennedy, an RLP councillor who was
himself taken to hospital with suspected broken ribs, said that
he had seen Fitt fall to the ground and he had appeared to be
on his knees when he was struck by a baton. During these first
scuffles the blue civil rights banner was seized and ripped by
the police.

There was a brief attempt at a sit-down in front of the police
lines, and a ragged snatch of 'We shall overcome' was sung. Then
an impromptu meeting, on the model of what had happened in Dungannon,
was held. Michael Farrell of the Young Socialists said that the
protest was over housing, gerrymandering and discrimination: 'We
are met by police with batons in their hands. Is that democracy?'
Betty Sinclair said

it had to be made clear that the Civil Rights Movement was not
anti-constitutional. In all the negotiations for the march and
the meeting the police had been co-operative. The Association
would have changed the day if the Minister had consulted them,
but he had banned it without enabling them to change their plans.
However, she declared, 'We want to make our case that, for certain
people in Northern Ireland there are no civil rights. Have we
made that clear?'There were cheers when she added, 'There may
be people here who think you have to spill blood for this. That
would mean you are playing Mr Craig's game.'

Eddie McAteer repeated Betty Sinclair's plea for restraint: 'Join
with me in wishing that no one should be exposed to hurt here
today. I advise you to make your way in a wee walk to the Diamond.'
Eamonn McCann said that events had shown that the old policies
would get no one anywhere: 'I don't advise anyone to charge that
barricade,' he said. 'I also want to make it clear as a private
individual that I can do nothing to stop them.' Ivan Cooper and
other speakers were less ambiguous in calling for restraint and
Betty Sinclair came back to ask the crowd to disperse quietly.
But almost immediately violence broke out again.

Some of the crowd attempted to strike up with 'We shall overcome'
but they were interrupted by a police loudspeaker announcement,
which was shouted down; this was probably an order to disperse
but very few could have heard it. At this point some of the protesters
started to throw their placards over the heads of those in front
at the police. Then the police, with batons drawn, advanced on
the crowd. Retreat for marchers fleeing them was blocked by a
cordon at the other end of Duke Street, where police also charged
the demonstrators. After the action had lasted for a few minutes,
County Inspector Meharg, through a loud- hailer, ordered: 'The
police will hold their hands, please.' Fergus Pyle reported:

Instead of a pause, this announcement was the prelude to a methodical
and efficient movement forward by the police, hitting everything
in front of them. Some people in the crowd tackled them back and
poles from the placards were flying through the air. From my vantage
point I saw nothing in the few seconds between the County Inspector's
announcement to have incited what appeared to be a concerted start
by the police.

The police carried on down Duke Street, clearing the crowd in
front of them as demonstrators screamed hysterically. Detachments
of police went after individuals and when the street was nearly
clear, water cannon were brought in. Later it was alleged that
the RUC sprayed not only those who remained on the road but also
groups sheltering in shop doorways and the first-floor window
of houses, some of which were open. Passers-by, and others who
had taken no part in the demonstration, were also soaked. Kenneth
Orbinson, an Ulster Television cameraman, gave evidence at the
trial of those arrested on 5 October: he said that he had been
sprayed while filming from the window of a flat in Duke Street;
but his film was not admitted as evidence.

A small number of demonstrators followed McAteer's advice and
took a 'wee walk' to the Diamond on the city side of the river,
infiltrating in groups of two or three. A Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament banner was unfurled and carried round the war memorial
before one of those carrying it was arrested. A crowd gathered
and shouted at the police, provoking another baton charge which
forced them down towards Butcher Gate and the Bogside. Stones
were thrown at the police and a number of shop windows were broken.
By this time the original confrontation between marchers and police
had given way to a general battle between the police and young
residents of the Bogside, most of whom had taken no part in the
march. A barricade was built in Fahan Street and set on fire and
a continuous fusillade of stones was thrown at the police sheltering
behind Butcher Gate. Attempts were made to disperse the stone
throwers with a water cannon, but its progress was halted by a
barricade; police trying to clear the obstruction returned fire
with stones which had been thrown at them. The battle lasted for
several hours and at about 10.30 p.m. there was a further clash
as a crowd charged the police and was dispersed by a counter-charge.
After this a section of the crowd marched to the Guildhall, from
where they were driven back up Shipquay Street towards the Diamond,
where two baton charges were needed to disperse them. Violence
continued into the following afternoon and evening; petrol bombs
were thrown and shops looted.

There were many stories afterwards of what appeared to be gratuitous
police violence. A young Derry woman was walking past a group
of police who were pushing and kicking a man. As she passed, she
said, a policeman had struck her in the face with a baton, 'and
I hadn't opened my mouth to him'. John Ryan MP claimed to have
seen a policeman remove a woman's glasses and then strike her
on the head; she had appeared, to him, to be over sixty years
of age and a bystander. Other stories of bystanders who suffered
included that of a man going home from his work in a bookmaker's
shop in the Waterside when he was set upon and batoned. A railway
worker, also making his way home, was caught up in the riot and,
as a result of baton blows, was deafened in one ear and had to
have sixteen stitches to his head.[25] Martin Cowley,
a reporter with the local nationalist newspaper, the Derry
Journal, was put into the police van beside Fred Heatley,
his head streaming with blood. He told Heatley that he had been
walking along the footpath when the police had made a baton charge.
He had shouted that he was a reporter but he was struck several
blows on the head and shoved into the police tender.

The Irish News reported that the police had struck at the
testicles of male demonstrators but none of the other papers reported
this. However, a medical certificate was read out in Stormont
some days later, which reported that a medical examination of
Eddie McAteer had found an oval bruise below his right groin,
about one inch away from the scrotum. McAteer could not remember
having been struck there and made no claim as to how the injury
had been caused.[21] A famous film clip, which has
been shown countless times, shows a NICRA supporter in front of
the police line, appealing for restraint before suddenly doubling
up, apparently in agony. At his trial in December, Eamonn Melaugh,
a prominent Derry republican, testified that he had seen a demonstrator
struck in the groin.[27]

The most bizarre story concerned Margaret Healy of Anne Street,
Derry. She was a polio victim and only four feet nine inches tall,
with curvature of the spine. She was running down Duke Street,
away from the baton charge, when she was arrested. Both the nationalist
Irish News and the middle of the road Sunday News
reported what happened. She told the former:

I lifted a broken placard that was lying in the centre of the
road to throw it into the side when two policemen pounced on me.
They accused me of going to hit one of them with it . . .they
put me in a police van and took me to Victoria Barracks where
they kept me for two hours.

At the police station, she said, she was told first that she would
be charged with assault and then that she would be charged with
disorderly behaviour. But eventually she was released without
a charge being made. Later, relatives of another polio victim
told the Derry Journal that he had been beaten up by a
group of policemen when he went to buy cigarettes on the evening
of Sunday 6 October.

Not all policemen behaved brutally. Fergus Pyle reported that
'many of the officers, probably local men, went no further than
duty required. I heard one man say "bastards" as a group
of policemen went past him. One of them rounded on him, grabbed
him by the arm, but only asked him for his name and address.'
A QUB woman student, a member of the NDP, recalled having told
a group of policemen early in the events that their conditions
were as bad as those the demonstrators were protesting about.
Some had been hostile but others were quite friendly. Later, after
a friend had been batoned, she approached a group of policemen
and remonstrated with them. One had raised his baton but the others
opened a gap for her and let her through. After the first clash,
when the crowd was halted in front of the police cordon, some
of the women had argued with the police and told them that they
too were victims of the 'system'. This was either ignored or taken
with good humour. According to Fred Heatley, the demonstrators
who were detained in Victoria RUC station were well treated.

The Cameron Report found that four policemen were injured during
the clashes in Duke Street and a further seven during the later
clashes at the Diamond and on the fringes of the Bogside. The
total number of civilian casualties was seventy-seven, most of
whom had suffered bruises or lacerations to the head. Only four
people - two policemen and two civilians - were detained in hospital.
The report suggested that there were severe shortcomings in police
tactics. Lord Cameron came to the conclusion that there had not
been a baton charge in Duke Street but that many policemen had
drawn their batons individually and when ordered to disperse the
march, had then used them indiscriminately. The situation was
made worse by the fact that the officers who had originally been
blocking Simpson's Brae moved down to the rear of the march and
then, unaware that their colleagues were dispersing the head of
the demonstration, were confronted by protesters running towards
them. Here too, the report found, there was indiscriminate use
of batons. The use of water cannon was criticised as having been
unnecessary and for affecting members of the public who had not
been involved in the march.

The march organisers can also be criticised. The choice of the
Waterside railway station as an assembly point only made sense
if the sole criterion was the convenience of demonstrators coming
from other parts of Northern Ireland. The Coalisland-Dungannon
march had given everyone a good day out and had used up a lot
of their energy by the time the moment of confrontation arrived.
The confrontation was predictable and planned, therefore relatively
easily controlled. The organisers were well prepared and able
to maintain their authority. In Derry things were very different.

The incipient differences between NICRA and the DHAC had never
been resolved and the Derry radicals and their allies in the Belfast
Young Socialists were determined to provoke a more drastic challenge
to authority than had occurred in Dungannon. Gerry Fitt, too,
seems to have had aims at variance with those of NICRA. He had
brought three British Labour MPs to Derry and may have thought
that the opportunity to expose the RUC should not be wasted. The
key leaders of NICRA arrived late, after the march had already
started; if they had any plans for preventing a clash with the
police, they were unable to put them into operation. The demonstrators'
tactic of walking into the police lines, while it was a principled
assertion of their right to march, invited the violent response
that followed and made further violence much more likely. The
throwing of placards by the Young Socialists provoked the RUC
without damaging its capacity to inflict punishment on the crowd.
McCann's speech, with its suggestion that the police lines ought
to be charged, while refusing to actually call for such action,
seems to have typified the confused militancy of the radicals,
who were suddenly precipitated into a conflict for which they
were quite unprepared. In later years the events of 5 October
were to be polished into simplified and incompatible propaganda
versions; it has to be stressed that the whole affair was a series
of blunders and the violence resulted from a breakdown of control
by the leaders of the march and the controllers of the police,
and not from any preexisting plan.

However, the judgement of the London Times of 7 October
on the affair was probably widely shared by political and public
opinion in Britain:

The refusal of Mr William Craig . . . to hold an inquiry into police
methods in Londonderry cannot be the last word. His assurance
that the police used no undue force echoes exactly that of Mayor
Daley in Chicago last month. Nonetheless Mayor Daley had to submit
to an inquiry and the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland should
now persuade his colleagues to agree. The reports of police brutality
to individuals and loss of self-control in general are too uncomfortably
convincing to be waved away by Mr Craig.

The Guardian asked: 'If the police practice is to strike
obstructive demonstrators on the legs, as Mr Craig claims, how
did heads happen to be bleeding?'

In the aftermath of the events in Derry, Craig, members of the
Govermnent and other Unionists strenuously defended both the ban
on the march and the actions of the RUC. In an interview with
William Hardcastle on BBC Radio 4's 'The World This Weekend',
the text of which was published in the Irish News on 7
October, Craig introduced two themes which were to be repeated
over and over during the next few days. Challenged about the ban,
he claimed:

'The civil rights march was banned because they were proposing
to march through areas that would provoke serious riot.' He said
that in Derry, down through the years, it had been established
that Loyalists could parade in certain places, Republicans in
certain places.
Mr Hardcastle: 'But they don't regard themselves as a sectarian
group either?' Mr Craig: 'This absolutely astonishes me. We can
see little or no difference, and indeed yesterday we unfortunately
failed to arrest some very prominent IRA men, including Cathal
Goulding from Dublin.[28] There is little doubt in
police circles that it is, in fact, a Republican front.'

The Irish Times quoted Craig as claiming that a reason
for banning the march had been that it posed a threat to the United
States military base in Derry:

'The authorities in Northern Ireland were quite satisfied that
a substantial amount of explosives was in the area, and it might
only be a matter of time until this sort of activity was renewed.'
The Minister said that all of the activities of the civil rights
movement had indicated that it was predominantly a Republican
body, and activities in Derry did not disprove that. Genuine supporters
of civil rights in principle were extremely ill-advised to associate
as they were doing with the IRA and Communism.

In the Stormont debate on the events of 5 October, Craig referred
to NICRA as 'an omnium gatherum made up of members of the
Londonderry Housing Action Committee, the majority of whom are
also members of the Connolly Association, of the Republican Party
which includes well-known members of the IRA and Sinn Féin,
of the Young Socialists and of the Communist Party'.[29]
He went on to stress the likelihood of sectarian clashes had the
procession followed the original route and he defended the actions
of the RUC as necessary to avoid even worse violence. Other Unionist
speakers - the debate was boycotted by the opposition parties
- who supported his judgement on the ban included the liberal
Phelim O'Neill. Several speakers also repeated Craig's claims
about links between NICRA and both republicanism and Communism.

Many commentators pointed out later that there was, in fact, no
trouble between the demonstrators and the Protestant residents
of the Waterside. The only confrontation in Duke Street, or later
at the Diamond, was between police and civil rights marchers or
their supporters. It should also be noted that on this occasion
the march was not accompanied by nationalist bands. This is not
proof, of course, that there was no reasonable expectation of
trouble; the late announcement of the ban, however, gave credence
to the assumption that it had only been prompted by the Apprentice
Boys march, and that the Government, as in Dungannon, was allowing
a loyalist organisation to manipulate the situation so that an
opposition demonstration would be banned. NICRA also had a reasonable
complaint that the lateness of the ban gave them no time to negotiate
any alternative date or route.

Craig and other ministers were at pains afterwards to make it
clear that irrespective of the likelihood of a rival parade, the
march would not have been allowed to proceed through the Waterside
or the walled city. This cut little ice with NICRA, which rejected
the claim that the march was in any way provocative and accused
the Government of suppressing free expression. Craig seems to
have been determined to undermine the association's credibility
and to brand its members as troublemakers. The accusations of
republican and Communist links were significant, and Craig obviously
believed that it was reasonable to assume that the motives of
NICRA were subversive. It is important, therefore, to examine
the nature of republican and Communist involvement in NICRA, and
their motives, strategy and tactics within the association.

The Cameron Report found evidence of republican involvement in
NICRA, but in a famous passage praised the way in which IRA stewards
had kept order on demonstrations. But the report missed the fact
that the republicans, through the Wolfe Tone Societies, had been
largely responsible for creating NICRA in the first place and
some commentators have accused Cameron of naïveté
about republican influence. One of these, Patrick Riddell, asks:

If the sole intention of the Association were to secure civil
rights for Ulster Catholics while accepting and loyally supporting
the constitution of the Ulster state . . . why has it admitted to
its counsels and membership, as it undoubtedly has, a number of
men from an organisation pledged to the destruction of that state?[30]

Riddell partly overstates the extent to which NICRA claimed to
accept the constitution of Northern Ireland. There is a difference
between 'accepting and loyally supporting' the constitution and
acting within legal boundaries to press demands for reform within
the existing constitutional framework. Riddell verges on suggesting
that an organisation may be deemed subversive not simply if it
works to undermine the state, but if its members have any mental
reservations about the constitution. Nevertheless, it is reasonable
to question the motives of IRA members and supporters in NICRA,
and whether their influence might, at some future date, have led
the association into subversive activities.

Cathal Goulding gave an interview to the Belfast Telegraph
of 10 February 1969 in which he readily admitted that republicans
were involved in the civil rights movement. However, he was anxious
to stress that

we have not organised the civil rights movement and we have not
infiltrated it . . .We have issued no directive about it. But
we have encouraged Republicans to be active in it, always accepting
the directives of the CR [civil rights] committees. We have emphasised
. . . that peaceful demonstration along the lines of CR is the true
way to support its aims. The Republicans are in the civil rights
movement the same as they are in the trade unions. They are members
of the community being denied civil rights. It is not a specific
IRA assignment. Our attitude is that we want to see everyone in
the six counties, whether Protestant or Catholic, active in the
movement to attain civil rights for the people there.

The republican documents quoted show that the republican movement
was much more centrally involved in the creation of NICRA than
Goulding suggests. They also show that political activity had
by no means ousted the republicans' commitment to armed force;
indeed it was seen as a necessary preliminary to the resumption
of the military campaign. But they do not prove that NICRA was
a front for the preparation of such a campaign or that it was
reasonable or wise to treat it as such. Quite simply, the concept
of agitation on civil rights, far less the creation of a movement
to carry out such agitation, is missing from the documents. They
propose broadly based agitation on social and economic issues
but nowhere do they contain blueprints that correspond with the
objectives, structure or activities of NICRA. There is also clear
evidence that the republicans were not actually in control of
NICRA in the period up to and including the 5 October march. This
can be adduced from the fact that their internal document, Ireland
Today, speculated about the replacement of some of the leadership
of the association at a future date. This would hardly have been
necessary if at that time they were in a position to dictate the
policy and actions of the association.

It is also necessary to distinguish between different sections
and levels of the republican movement. Although the civil rights
strategy could not have been adopted by republicans without the
approval of the leadership of the IRA - and Roy Johnston stressed
the importance of its involvement in the Maghera meeting of 1966
- this does not mean that the army council initiated the setting
up of NICRA or that it paid any detailed attention to the work
being done by republicans within the association. Seán
Mac Stíofáin indicates that the first time the leadership
discussed the civil rights movement was when

a proposal arrived at Dublin HQ from the Tyrone unit of the IRA.
It asked that members of the Republican Movement be permitted
to take part in a civil rights march to Dungannon from Coalisland
. . . The leadership unanimously gave permission and word was sent
out to all Republican units in the North to encourage as many
people as possible to participate. I emphasise 'encourage' because
the leadership did not make it compulsory. It was also decided
that no known members of the IRA from the South would participate.[31]

Even the Wolfe Tone Societies, the one section of the republican
movement which had a well-worked-out strategy for the civil rights
movement, were unable to implement their plans exactly as they
had intended. NICRA, in its early stages, differed in two important
respects from the model proposed by the societies in August 1966.
They had emphasised agitation on the concrete issues of electoral
reform and discrimination in housing and employment, but NICRA
originally operated as a body which made representations on the
broad issues of civil liberties and took up individual cases of
infringement of rights. Undoubtedly the republicans were influential
in steering the association towards public marches but they had
to persuade others within NICRA; they could not determine the
matter in advance. The other difference was in the way in which
the association was organised. Tuairisc proposed the creation
of

local committees and groups . . . on the widest possible basis throughout
the towns and villages of the North . . . Civil Rights committees,
electoral reform groups, community development associations, friendship
clubs, it matters not what they are called, or how diverse they
are in structure and organisation. They should seek to organise
the maximum number of people at local level to bring pressure
to bear on local authorities, on Stormont, but particularly on
Westminster.

This was a proposal for a loose federation of locally based groups;
NICRA, however, was a centralised organisation based mainly in
Belfast. Had the Tuairisc model been adopted, there would
have been no question of NICRA initiating demonstrations in Dungannon
or Derry; this would have been the responsibility of purely local
groups. The form which NICRA took, therefore, was determined by
the coalition of forces which actually came together to create
it, of which the republicans were only one element. Since a number
of different initiatives on the issue of civil rights took place
between 1962 and 1966. it was probably fortuitous that the one
which led to the creation of an organisation was the Wolfe Tone
Societies conference) and even without their intervention, something
very like NICRA would probably have emerged in any case.

The CPNI was involved in NICRA from the start. From the early
1960s the party had seen the issue of civil liberties as a key
area of agitation. Its 1962 programme, Ireland's Path to Socialism,
said:

In no other aspect of public affairs has the authority of the
Executive been abused as much as in Civil, Religious and Democratic
Liberties. This is the outstanding feature which has enabled the
Unionist Party to create divisions and govern unchallenged since
the foundation of the Northern Ireland Parliament . . .
Abolition of all anti-democratic laws, an end to civil and religious
discrimination, and an end to the rigging of electoral areas in
the interests of the wealthy, can be accomplished by the united
action of the people. The organised Labour Movement is the force
to lead the struggle for democracy and the rights of the individual
to participate with equality in public affairs. The Communist
Party has this struggle has this foremost aim.[32]

The 1966 congress of the CPNI adopted a 'Democratic Programme
for Unity', which included demands for the electoral law in Northern
Ireland to be brought into line with that in Britain, except for
the reintroduction of proportional representation and the abolition
of cash deposits by candidates.

The CPNI was not instrumental in creating NICRA but it was well
represented on its first executive committee: Noel Harris of AUEW
TASS, a CPNI member, was the first chairman; Derek Peters of the
CPNI was secretary; and Betty Sinclair of the Belfast trades council
was elected to the committee. At the meeting which adopted the
constitution, Ken Banks of AUEW TASS was added to the executive
committee; he was close to the CPNI, although not actually a member.
However, at the first annual general meeting in February 1968,
Banks and Harris were not returned to the executive committee
and although Sinclair replaced Harris in the chair, Peters was
replaced as secretary by John McAnerney of the CSJ. Banks, Harris
and Sinclair were probably elected because of their trade-union
connections, but precisely because of these existing responsibilities,
the first two could not devote much time and effort to what appeared
to be a marginal group making little impact: There is not much
evidence of a determined drive by the Communists to control NICRA
and even less that they had a great deal of influence.

The one member of the CPNI who was centrally involved in NICRA
was Betty Sinclair; as secretary of the Belfast trades council
she had more time to devote to it than trade-union officials like
Banks and Harris. Her involvement led one Unionist MP to comment
after the events in Derry:

Last but not least we have the Communist Party led by that veteran
Miss Sinclair, who is the chairman of the whole civil rights movement.
When we hear of the Communist Party appealing for law and order
it seems to me that it is a matter of Satan rebuking sin. There
is no doubt about it that this programme is an Irish Republican
Army programme sponsored and inspired by Communism.[33]

In fact, Sinclair was a strong advocate of caution and moderation.
Her opposition to what she regarded as adventurism and ultra-leftism
was shown in 1969 when she resigned from the executive together
with Conn McCluskey, John McAnerney and Fred Heatley in protest
at NICRA involvement with the People's Democracy (PD). Eamonn
McCann, in his letter to Michael Farrell describing the joint
DHAC-NICRA meeting of September 1968, said:

The meeting was chaired by Betty Sinclair. I brought up the question
of bans and prescriptions and Sinclair finally stated that no
red flags or 'unauthorised' slogans will be permitted. I said,
to push the point, that having talked to some of the YS [Young
Socialists] . . . I had no doubt that there would be a YS contingent
with a red flag and that I would 'react physically' to any attempt
to remove it. Sinclair steered the discussion away into safer
waters, but not before herself and McAnerney had agreed that 'the
Young Socialists are the biggest problem'.

An article based on interviews with Betty Sinclair shortly before
her death in 1981 discussed her attitudes during the early months
of NICRA:

During this time she wanted to exploit all the constitutional
possibilities and consolidate a broad-based support around the
civil rights demands. This was why she initially opposed the first
march from Coalisland to Dungannon, but the arguments of the Nationalists
and the Republicans on direct action tactics had become dominant
and she was outvoted.[34]

She may actually have pressed her case with less vigour than is
indicated above, since by mid-1968 it was abundantly clear that
'broad-based support' was not emerging and she may have suspended
her earlier judgement in view of the success of the first march.
But in any case, her prominence in the preparations for the 5
October march, and her leading part in it, did not mean that she
intended that it should lead to a violent outcome and the mere
fact of her CPNI membership cannot be taken as evidence for the
existence of a violent conspiracy.

Accusations of republican and Communist domination of NICRA and
attempts to link the civil rights movement to subversion and violence
were to some extent understandable responses by Unionists to the
events in Derry. But they were a gross oversimplification. Craig
had been monitoring developments within the republican movement
since 1966, when he had obtained intelligence from RUC, Garda
Síochána and British sources about the IRA's turn
to agitation on social and economic issues. He had, correctly,
seen the civil rights movement as a realisation of one aspect
of the new republican strategy and he had observed that the turn
to legal and open political work had not resulted in an elimination
of the IRA's military capacity. He had concluded that the new
strategy would eventually lead to a resumption of the armed struggle,
but, more dubiously, had gone on to suppose that civil rights
activities could be treated as if they were an armed insurrection.

Twenty years later Craig was still convinced that he had been
right. In a BBC Radio 4 programme about the civil rights movement
he said:

It gives me some satisfaction that those who laughed at me and
poked fun at me now have evidence in front of their very eyes.
It's a pity it had to happen that way. If people had taken me
as a sincere , genuine man who was worried, I think we could have
avoided all that has happened. We've created in Ulster and Ireland
a monster that will terrify the island for a good many years to
come.[35]

This is a typical conspiracy theory, which adduces the fact that
something did happen as evidence that someone meant it
to happen. It also supposes that vigorous enough action in the
early stages of the civil rights movement would have nipped it
in the bud and restored Northern Ireland to stability.

In fact, Craig's actions contributed significantly to destabilising
the situation. His response was predicated on the idea that he
was dealing with an IRA insurrection when he was actually faced
with a group of unarmed demonstrators who posed nothing more than
a difficult public order problem. The chaotic and often brutal
policing of the march contributed to the very problem which the
RUC was supposed to control. At the trial of those arrested on
5 October the police gave confused evidence about whether or not
stones, as well as placards, had been thrown. No coherent explanation
was given as to why demonstrators, running away from the confrontation
at one end of Duke Street, were met by a line of police barring
their way at the other. It also emerged that the police assumption
that it was an offence to begin marching in the prohibited area
was wrong. No law had been broken until the demonstrators disobeyed
the order to disperse, following the meeting in Duke Street. This
was a warning which, as Fergus Pyle reported, very few of them
could have heard. The result of all this was that the Government's
claims about the march and its defence of the actions of the police
carried very little conviction outside the ranks of its own supporters.
The events discredited the Government and fuelled the discontent
that had created the civil rights movement in the first place.

Proof of republican involvement in NICRA prior to 5 October 1968
actually says very little about the civil rights movement.
NICRA was a small, self-selected group of activists, not a movement.
In theory, members of the executive committee were representatives
of affiliated organisations and the committee was supposed to
co-ordinate the efforts of the groups which supported it. In fact,
the executive was the association. Executive members did
all the organising work and very largely constituted the activists
within NICRA. Members of the CSJ, the NILP, the CPNI, the Belfast
Wolfe Tone Society, the Republican Clubs and private individuals
worked together because they had developed a personal commitment
to the association, and not because they were directed by any
outside agency.

Before the events in Derry on 5 October, the civil rights movement
did not exist; there was only a small, isolated group of activists.
In the wake of 5 October, NICRA mushroomed into a movement with
branches in most towns in Northern Ireland in which there was
a significant Catholic population. Contacts were established with
supporting organisations in the Irish Republic, Britain, North
America, Australia, New Zealand and various countries in Europe.
Two other important civil rights groups emerged - the DCAC and
the PD. NICRA was the largest and most representative civil rights
organisation but it was only one part of the civil rights movement
and the original, pre-October NICRA was swamped by hundreds of
new activists and thousands of supporters.

The emergence of this new movement transformed the political situation
in Northern Ireland, producing sectarian tensions, instability,
conflict and violence. But responsibility for this should not
retrospectively, be fixed on the small group which initiated these
events. It is manifest that they were too weak and uninfluential
to produce such a major upheaval by their own efforts. In fact
it was the television and newspaper pictures of police batoning
demonstrators which proved to be the catalyst in transforming
the situation. The events in Derry crystallised the feelings of
frustration and discontent among Catholics and the dissatisfaction
with the lack of progress towards reform felt by a wide range
of opposition groups. They also put Unionists on the defensive,
prompting them to make accusations about a republican and Communist
conspiracy which stoked fears among their own rank-and-file supporters.
The civil rights marches created an opportunity for Ian Paisley
to put himself at the head of plebeian Protestant resistance to
the civil rights movement.

The use of the term 'civil rights' by NICRA inevitably invites
comparisons with the Black civil rights movement in the United
States. The adoption of street marches, sit-downs, passive resistance
and songs like 'We shall not be moved' and 'We shall overcome'
are evidence that the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland
saw a close parallel between its activities and the struggle of
Blacks in the Deep South. However, on closer examination the parallel
proves illusory, as Frank Wright points out:

Blacks were subject to far more drastic inequalities than were
Catholics, therefore civil rights made far more difference to
blacks than to Catholics. Integration - meaning equal access to
public facilities, political participation and equal citizen rights
- was a coherent objective for blacks because most of the denials
of equality were sustained by segregation.
However, where blacks had no viable method of expressing nationalism
when disillusion with the achievements of civil rights set in,
Catholics could revert to a nationalism which already shaped much
of their previous experience.[36]

Steve Bruce makes a similar point:

American blacks were always assimilationists because they had
nowhere else to go. There was never a time when any more than
a handful of eccentrics advocated the establishment of a separate
black nation-state. The issue in America was, and still is, the
relationship between two populations within a nation-state.
Concessions to blacks, while they did amount to debits from poor
whites, were not major threats to the continued existence of the
state . . .
The Ulster situation has always been quite different. Perhaps
some parts of the civil rights movement were genuinely, rather
than tactically, assimilationist ... However, the speed with which
many of its leaders shifted to more traditional nationalist and
republican positions suggests that a large part of the movement
was always ultimately interested in dismantling Northern Ireland.[37]

These passages highlight some of the strategic and tactical Problems
involved in transferring the model of the Black movement in the
United States to Northern Ireland. But their flaw - and this is
particularly true of Bruce - is that they telescope the development
of the Northern Ireland civil rights movement and retrospectively
ascribe to it a coherence and a level of strategic thinking which
it never had. After 5 October 1968 a poorly organised and deeply
divided movement attempted to apply some of the methods used in
the Deep South. But the situation had already run out of their
- or anyone else's - control. By then the extent to which the
Black movement was an appropriate model was irrelevant. Before
5 October 1968 the handful of NICRA activists had a very simple
and extremely limited impression of what was happening across
the Atlantic. Given the absence of any mass movement, the only
activity which they could propose was street marches. This was
risky and proved to be an extremely ill-advised tactic. But it
was precisely the kind of initiative which could be expected from
a small, isolated and frustrated group of political activists.
It showed that they were ill-fitted to become the leaders of a
mass movement, but no more than that. They were not in control
of all the factors. They did not determine the actions of the
Ministry of Home Affairs nor of the RUC in Duke Street. Nor were
they in control of the young hooligans of the Bogside or the Paisleyite
counter-demonstrators. They were not, in other words, the leaders
of a conspiracy to overthrow the Northern Ireland state.

[1] Irish Weekly, 22 September 1962
[2] Johnston, 1966, p. 1
[3] Johnston, 1968, P. 30
[4] The Scarman Tribunal, presided over by Mr justice (now Lord)
Scarman, was an inquiry into the riots and shootings in the summer
of 1969. Its report was published in April 1972.
[5] Scarman Report, vol. II, P. 48
[6] See NIHCD 70:191-4, 13 June 1968. Van Voris wrongly
identifies
this document as the one which was annexed to the Scarman Report.
For a description of the incident referred to, which took place
in Derry, see Chapter 5.
[7] Irish Universities Press, Northern Ireland Political Literature
(microfiche collection), fiche 42
[8] Ibid.[9] Johnston, 1972, p. 17
[10] Ibid.[11] Anthony Coughlan has informed the author that this was,
in fact, the Tuairisc document already referred to, and
that he was its author although he was not present at the Maghera
meeting (letter, 12 August 1988).
[12] Interview, 6 April 1986
[13] NICRA, 1978, p. 20
[14] Heatley, Fortnight, 22 March 1974, p. 11
[15] Hope, 1976. p. 33
[16] NICRA, 1978, p. 11
[17] Irish News, 26 August 1968
[18] Irish Times, 26 August 1968[19] Cameron Report, para. 35. The Cameron Commission was
a three-man commission of inquiry, presided over by Lord Cameron,
set up by Terence O'Neill in January 1969 to investigate the violence
since 5 October 1968. Its report was published in September 1969.
[20] Devlin, 1969, p. 92
[21] McCann, 1974, p. 37
[22] Copy of undated letter written by Eamonn McCann and sent
to Michael Farrell before 5 October 1968. Permission to quote
from the letter kindly given by Eamonn McCann.
[23] Unless otherwise stated, the information given here about
these events, and the quotes, are taken from Fergus Pyle's superb
report in the Irish Times of 7 October 1968, or from the
Irish News report of the same date.
[24] At the time the Fianna Fáill government was proposing
to abolish proportional representation for elections in the Irish
Republic. This would probably have guaranteed Fianna Fáil
a permanent Dáil majority and opponents saw this as a civil
liberties issue parallel to those raised by the civil rights movement
in the north.
[25] Sunday News, 13 October 1968
[26] NIHCD 70:108-9, 16 October 1968
[27] Derry Journal, 10 December 1968
[28] Irish News, 7 October 1968; Goulding proved that he
was actually in Dublin at the time. Fred Heatley recalls that
Goulding had originally intended to take part but that his car
had broken down.
[29] NIHCD 70:1014. 16 October 1968; in fact no members of the
DHAC or the Young Socialists were involved in NICRA at this time,
nor was the Connolly Association, which has never been organised
in Ireland. Craig meant the Connolly Society of Derry, which was
a purely nominal body used by the left republicans to get extra
representation on the organising committee for the march. Craig
had a habit of quoting politically inept police reports as if
they were matters of indisputable fact.
[30] Riddell, 1970, p. 139
[31] Mac Stiofáin, 1975, p. 108
[32] See Stewart, James, The Struggle in the North[33] NIHCD 70:1008, 15 October 1968
[34] Morrissey, 1983, p. 129
[35] BBC Radio 4, 'Ireland: the Spark that Lit the Flame', presented
by Mary Holland and broadcast on 28 February 1988.
[36] Wright, 1988, p. 165
[37] Bruce, 1986. p. 266

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